April 16, 2013 by Elliotandme

Horray for sun!

I can’t tell you how much happier I am since the sun made an appearance!

Today, Tuesday 16 April 2013, I picked up Elliot from nursery, came home and played in the garden. It was so nice that we even ate our tea at the little table and chairs at the end of the garden. Bliss!

Ok it’s nothing amazing, but I feel like spring has finally arrived. We planted some new plants over the weekend and I think it won’t be long until we’re getting our veg box stocked (ready to be demolished by slugs but we live in hope!)

Happy Tuesday everyone!

April 7, 2013 by Elliotandme

A day at the farm

What a difference a couple of sunny days makes! So ok it wasn’t exactly warm, but at least there were blue skies and the sun came out for a bit.

In response we’ve had a really active couple of days, cramming lots of family activities in. Today we went to Cogges Farm – literally 2 minutes walk away from our house. Saved from an uncertain future, Cogges was reopened in 2011 handily while I was on maternity leave. I even helped train some of the volunteers. Recently opened for the 2013 season, there has been much changed over the Winter, with an indoor soft play area, plenty of animals to see (and feed carrots to – Elliot’s favourite thing today, I think!) and an adventure playground taking shape in the grounds, delayed by the annoying weather, but not far from completion.

We spent ages there and treated ourselves to coffee and cake in the cafe afterwards – very well recommended!

It was fantastic to be out and about and I can’t wait to take Elliot back again and again over the next few months. Cogges is a brilliant place to take children and staffed by the friendliest group of people – one even took us in to see baby chickens and let us hold and stroke them!

We got season tickets – at £15 each they’re really reasonable!

Elliot loved the wooden tractor and slide outside the cafe too!

N.B. this is not a sponsored post, I just had such a nice time and wanted to recommend it!

April 6, 2013 by Elliotandme

Eating raspberries!

Dear Elliot,

Had to record this here for you to look at when you’re a bit older and your fingers get too big for eating raspberries this way!

I love how happy this makes you.

Keep smiling little man!

Xxx

April 5, 2013 by Elliotandme

Goodbye baby, hello toddler!

We’ve reached another milestone in this house this week. Our little man now sleeps in a bed (well, his cot bed with one of the sides removed) and I feel like he’s really growing up, noticeably getting clearer in his speech and actions each day. It’s amazing!

Any nervousness I had about taking the side off his cot was completely unfounded as he’s managed brilliantly so far, and seems to love his bed. He still hasn’t worked out that he can get out of it himself in the morning, so still shouts for one of us to go in, but he hasn’t fallen out yet(touches wood) and an added unexpected bonus was that it made it far easier to sort him out after a poorly nighttime episode on Monday night, which would have been much harder if he was still in the cot.

Catching up on some light reading

So there we are, next stop potty training (whenever the sun comes out, and yes I’m sticking to that as an excuse as to why I haven’t started it already, did you even read my post on potty training? I’m terrified!)

March 20, 2013 by Elliotandme

Shh… the turtle is sleeping!

We spent the weekend down in the New Forest last weekend. When we booked it we thought March would be lovely and Spring-like, how very wrong we were! Rain rain and more rain was the order of the day, which meant we needed to be inventive with activities to keep an active 2 year old entertained.

The pool where we were staying was a BIG hit – we bought a noodle (long foam thing!) and he loved gliding around the pool holding on to it. There was also a jacuzzi-type pool (though it was the same temperature as the main pool so fine for kids) and he loved that too. We taught him how to blow the surface of the water, and he was really good at kicking his legs and “jumping” in from the sides.

On Saturday we went to Bournemouth Aquarium, which was busy (as expected) but still very good. Elliot loved the fish swimming over our heads, and kissed the glass by a pufferfish!

The funniest part of the weekend (of which there were a few if I’m honest!) was as we left the aquarium. Elliot was quite sad to leave and wanted to go back in to see the turtles. I told him they had gone to sleep so we had to go, to which he replied: ” turtle wake up? Eat breakfast and a yoghurt?”, before adding “and a man” Elliot has a bad habit of having a gingerbread man after most meals, so I guess it’s only right that Mr Turtle would have one too!

I think we’ll be visiting aquariums a bit more regularly from now on! It was a big hit (though to be fair the simple pleasure of jumping in puddles was also worth standing around in the rain for!)

(Apologies for poor quality of the photos – apparently rain didn’t agree with my phone!)